Make ink from bloodstone, spurious one,Write long, lavish manuscripts upon the linen of yourheart,Empowering yourself with mythic words,Requiring witness of your own two eyes,Seated in the garden of the sun,Among the trees of gold,Where jeweled birds twitter,And spirals of light wander lazily forth from the maze atthe heart of the sun,Setting golden flakes upon the feathers and the trees,Flakes that balance delicately till they dissolveInto the very air.

Call your eyes to witness, then,The deed that has been done,Upon the linen parchment,Words of arterial brightness,Written in the garden of the sun.

Now I sit outside again,the Void lights twinkling,While the faithful worship inside,I'm thinking of the distances, the spaceBetween the stars.With bowed head I cannot seethe splendor of the Night,With lips so busy with prayer,I cannot listen to the chilly reminderof the darkness, the brisk night windThat whips along my cheek.No rebellion contra orthodoxyfeeds my alienation,Only need for silenceand meditation. May I onwardendlessly pursue the unerringTrajectory of the True.

Homage to the LamaStepping like a mountain goat along the rocky defile,Garbed in clouds and staringInto the naked face of KuntuzangpoUntil the single eye of the sunInhabits the throne at the center of the Mind,One is one with all the teachersAnd reverences them with each thought and breath.

When the knife can penetrate the stone, When breath melts glacial ice, When the libertine’s love quenches the fire of hate Turning an execution to a celebration of wisdom, Then the proofs of the learned are confounded, The outrage of the nobles is silenced, And the king’s knee bends with every other.

Intrepidly declaring that which disturbs the pious,Shattering brittle icons with a mere notion, Spurning lucre and the company of the powerful, Buying resentment with pure intention, Such a guru needs no apologists Or lengthy homages, No coterie of sycophants to praise his lineage, No train of well-wishers and hangers-on.

At home anywhere, even among pimps and whores, Friendly with the despised, Despised by the powerful who are made irrelevant, Such a lama is worthy of Saraha’s mantle. Such a lama do I praise.

I was born down in TexasSilver spoon in my noseI tasted sweet senoritasHey you know how it goes

Then I went into politicsMan, I sure got it rightMade lots of moneyMade even more friendsIt was a fool's delight

At last I came to the castleWith the doors open wideAnd I concluded without much ado,Heaven's safe, but the profit's in Hell

Then I opened my BibleAnd it showed me the wayThere was voting on the Senate FloorI thought I heard them say

Welcome to the Hotel BabyloniaSuch an ancient place (such an ancient place)There'll be no disgracePlenty of guns in the Hotel BabyloniaYou can find terrorists hereAny time of year

Alberto is so helpfulHe has explained so clearHow it is that I'm invincibleHow the story ends

How they give me the powerHow we do what we willOne voted to stay my knifeThe others voted to kill

So I dialed up the Congress"We need money and time"They said take everything you needWe're drinking Jack Abramoff's wineAnd I hear Achmed Chalabi callingFrom far awayThere's so much money herethat we can makeCome and we can play

We're living it up at the Hotel BabyloniaSuch an ancient place (such an ancient place)There'll be no disgracePlenty of guns in the Hotel BabyloniaYou can find terrorists hereAny time of year

Baghdad's one big blisterFilled with murder and crimeAnd I've spent everything the world will earnUntil the end of time

And in the prison courtyardWe strung up old SaddamBut he died like an iron manand on YOU TUBE he lives on

Now I try to rememberHow I got to this placeI'm naked as a jaybirdFacing some disgrace

"Relax," says MalikiWe are glad to deceiveYou'll be here another twenty yearsDon't even try to leave

We're living it up at the Hotel BabyloniaSuch an ancient place (such an ancient place)There'll be no disgracePlenty of guns in the Hotel BabyloniaYou can find terrorists hereAny time of year

New York Times 11/11/04 wrote: On another occasion, the snipers tensed when they heard movement in the direction of a smoldering building. A cat sauntered out, unconcerned with anything but making its rounds in the neighborhood.

'Can I shoot it, sir?' a sniper asked an officer.

'Absolutely not,' came the reply.

Once was a cat named Shiraz Lived in the city of Fallujah, She had nine lives and here's how she used one. She got up one day and stretched and the people were warring as usual, Blasting away with AKs, RPGs and those nasty 500 pounders That pummel the earth and upset your digestion, But Shiraz went out, anyway, Because she wanted to catch the sun and While she was catching it she fell into scopesight of a sniper of course Shiraz knew about snipers because she was a cat and a cat is a sniper, in her own way, if she knows what's good for her and in a city like Fallujaha girl grows up quick especially if she's a cat So Shiraz sez "what the fuck! Or Iraqi cat for that, I'm going out to take a shit Stretch in the sun even if some scumbag human sniper ventilates me, I've got nine lives and I'm gonna spend one, I'm wishing there's a newsman out there watching my sweet Iraqi ass"and there was.

I am attached -- to the earth, by the weight she gives my bodyI am attached -- to eating, by hunger to breath, by the mysterious desire for airI am attached -- to my mate, by the need for warmth and companionship to my children by genetic strands and webs of delight to other people, by being like them to mountains and streams and deserts and winds and ocean waves lamplight in the dark Moonlight at midnightI am attached to the web of being so completely, look at me and you everywhere in everythingWe are attached.

He lived and died anonymously.He had no friends that he could call uponWhen he was in trouble and he often was

He drank incessantly as a true expressionOf his confusion, and could not spare a minuteTo reflect upon causes or consequences.He picked his acquaintances carelessly,According to convenience, and thus was oftendisappointed by their poor sense of timing.He declined to follow through on things,and his idea of a good sense of closurewas leaving.When his mother died, the last person on earthto have any interest in his whereaboutsdisappeared.When he died, it was like a star went outthat nobody had been looking at or ever noted.And I ask you do you care?